


you'll never know, dear

by Aramley



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-11
Updated: 2010-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>David is mostly an accident, inasmuch as anything involving eighteen months of wrestling with the adoption bureaucracies of three separate countries can really be called an accident</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	you'll never know, dear

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://aramleys-words.livejournal.com/11959.html).

The alarm sounds at seven, which is a repulsive time of a Saturday morning, and Novak turns his face into the pillow and says, "Oh my God, it's totally your turn this week."

Rafa makes some incoherent half-articulated sounds that might be an attempt at a denial, if they are language at all.

"It is," Novak insists. He has yet to open his eyes. "It is so your turn."

"No," Rafa manages, thickly. "Last week. I. Hm. Thing."

"Ugh." Novak opens one eye and then the other to bestow a look of abject hatred on Rafa. It goes to waste; Rafa's face is smushed into the pillow. "I hate you," Novak says, to Rafa's catastrophe of morning curls.

"Hm," Rafa says. He may or may not be conscious. Another moment, and he snores thinly. Novak toys briefly with the idea of hitting him. Instead he leans over and presses a kiss through the curls to somewhere in the region of Rafa's ear, because he loves the stupid lazy bastard, and then he sighs and gets up, and goes to wake the kid.

-

David is mostly an accident, inasmuch as anything involving eighteen months of wrestling with the adoption bureaucracies of three separate countries can really be called an accident. It starts in a UNICEF orphanage, where a little boy looks at Novak with eyes like saucers in his solemn little face, and curls tiny fingers into Novak's shirt when Novak hitches him onto one hip; smiles, shy and tentative, and relinquishes his grip with heartbreaking resignation when it's time for Novak to leave, already a full hour later than scheduled.

"Give me a minute," Novak says outside, and manages to turn a corner out of sight before he leans against the concrete wall with his eyes shut and tries to remember that he can breathe, and that his heart is safe still in his chest and not being dragged out inch by aching inch, its strings twined into tiny hands.

He calls Rafa.

"Hi," Rafa says, pleased and affectionate when he answers. "The line is so bad, I can hardly hear. Where are you?"

"I'm in," Novak thinks, and can't remember. "I don't - it's like a, an orphanage, you know. I don't. I mean."

"Nole," Rafa says, after a brief pause that might be satellite delay and might be something else. "You okay?"

"I," Novak says, and then, "So there's this kid here. He's."

"Talk to me," Rafa says, kind, and that's really how it starts.

-

When Novak goes to wake him David is already up, because the kid is unreal, and apparently all he wants to do in his life is get up at ass o'clock on a beautiful Saturday morning to go to orchestra in Porto Cristo and play the saxophone. He's sat up in bed, looking over his sheet music and following the minims and quavers with focussed concentration. It takes him a moment to even notice Novak at the door.

"Morning," he says, in Spanish, when he looks up finally.

"Hey," Novak says, in the same language. Smiling, because it's still the cutest thing to hear David practice his careful Spanish. "Rise and shine, sunshine."

Novak figures he still has a few years left before David starts to roll his eyes at the nickname, and he fully intends to enjoy every minute of them. He'll probably keep on after that point, too, because the way he understands it it's practically a parental responsibility to be an asshole to their teenage kid. For now, though, David still lights up a little at the endearment, flush with shy pleasure, and Novak follows it up with an affectionate ruffle of David's hair as they make their way downstairs, baby-blond still even though he's coming up on ten, and David laughs and shoves at Novak's wrist with a mock-frustrated, "Da- _ad_."

And yeah, that never gets old.

Sometimes on these Saturday mornings, Rafa will surface out of guilt and they all have breakfast together in the enormous sunny kitchen. This is not one of those Saturdays. Novak grips his second cup of coffee and thinks about Rafa, warm and sleeping in their bed, with something triangulated between jealousy and affection.

Still, David smears Nutella over his breakfast roll in a thick doubled layer, and Novak says, "Jesus, I swear you get more like him every day."

David pokes his tongue out, and takes a huge, messy bite out of his roll.

Seriously, Novak thinks, not really bothering to hide the grin behind his coffee cup. Every fucking day.

-

David is five years old that first visit, and six by the time they bring him home: a wide-eyed, wary boy, clingy some days and others shy, with bright moods like shafts of sunlight that are enough to keep Novak from articulating the grey clouds of his sometimes enormous _what-are-we-doing_ panic, even on the hardest nights, when he and Rafa lie curled together, numbed with exhaustion and wordless, inchoate anxiety.

David is seven and a half the first time he calls Rafa _dad_ or tells Novak that he loves him - this with his arms around Novak's neck in a fierce, spontaneous hug, and it's like - it's a grand slam victory, it's all of them at once, and better.

It's still hard after that, of course - sometimes David has nightmares, and sometimes he has tantrums, and sometimes he kicks footballs through the kitchen window because kids are kids, and additionally there are days when Novak could cheerfully strangle Rafa and bury him under the patio and take his chances with any jury - but that's just parenthood, right; that's family.

-

Novak loves his kid, yeah, but not enough to sit through a junior orchestra practice, so he runs errands in town until it's time to go back and collect David, saxophone and all, thrilling with the music and some instance of being singled out for praise by the conductor that gives Novak a vicarious rush of pride. Novak doesn't exactly know great saxophone music from a hole in the ground, but David's teachers say he's got talent and his home practice indicates that he supplements that with a generous helping of raw enthusiasm, so who knows. David can be a tax accountant for all Novak cares, as long as he's happy.

Back at the house Rafa has lunch ready - years of domesticity have turned him into an improbably competent cook - and they eat together on the patio in the back yard that overlooks the sea. Afterwards he and Rafa clear the dishes away inside and David takes the opportunity to pester the dog, who is ten now, and was technically their first baby - they got her as a puppy in that first year after they both retired, to go along with the house and the joint bank account and all the other things involved in fashioning one life out of two separate ones.

"Sorry I was asleep this morning," Rafa says. He brushes a hand across the small of Novak's back; a light, apologetic touch.

"It's okay," says Novak, warming at the touch. "Next week, it's your turn. Here, I'll wash, you wipe," and for a while they stand there, companionable in their quiet, industrious domesticity, and outside in their backyard David throws sticks for the dog in the early afternoon sunshine.

At last, Rafa says, "You think he is lonely, maybe?"

"What?" Novak looks at him. "Did he say -?"

"No, no," says Rafa. He shrugs, one-shouldered, studiously drying and re-drying the plate in his hands in lieu of actually looking at Novak. "I just - maybe one day he would like a brother, you know. Or a sister."

Novak looks over. "Oh."

Rafa smiles, and glances up. "Oh?"

Novak takes a moment to look down, where he's mid-forearm in soapy water. Ten years ago, if someone had asked him where he thought he'd be at this point in his life, he'd probably have laughed if they had told him this: thirty-nine and settled and content, with a kid and a to-all-intents-and-purposes _husband_ \- and maybe, he thinks, looking at Rafa and his softly hopeful, familiar, ridiculously beloved face - maybe they should do something about that, you know, make it official, if they're going to talk about increasing their family.

"We can talk to him about it," Novak says, finally, which is maybe not what he meant to say, or how he meant to say it, and he tries, "I think maybe he'd like that."

"Yeah?" Rafa says, and it occurs to Novak again that Rafa is the love of his god damn life, and how weird that is, how amazing.

"Yeah," Novak says, with a slow smile. It's a speck of a germ of an idea, but it plants itself in Novak's stomach with a small thrill - they must be crazy, both of them, but that's parenthood, right; that's family.


End file.
